Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" and Theories of Scholastic Psychology

Lois Roney reads the "Knight's Tale" as a pagan romance in which Chaucer has embedded a discussion of the theories of universal human nature and language use current in his day.

In the persons of the two young knights, he brings to life the rival scholastic theories of psychology, the Aristotelian-Thomist in Arcite, the Augustinian-Franciscan in Palamon.

In Theseus, Chaucer brings to life his own Christian humanist theory of universal human nature, concerned with human freedom and responsibility on the one hand and on the other, with the validity of figurative language to evoke Christian truths.

He thus begins the "Canterbury Tales" by putting forward a complete theory of human nature and language use, which he apparently then tests out in the tales and the linking narratives.

Roney suggests that we should consider Chaucer a major scholastic philosopher who added subjectivity and the value of worldly experience to the universal psychologies of his day, and who used language figuratively rather than literally.